Origin Stories
by xStaticxTelevisionx
Summary: So. Was anyone else wondering what the Role-Holder's were like before their duties were forced upon them? What were their hopes and dreams? Were they sweet, innocent, manipulative, or complete and raging psychopaths from the start? T because I love dark irony. For every 5 reviews I get, I will post a new chapter!
1. Irony

**So the poll is over and the results are in! The vote was 5:1, one-shots to the continuation of Obnoxious. So who's interested in Elliot's story?**

**-Static**

**/*\**

The Hatter had ordered the fifteen-year-old girl to kill her parents the moment she'd aligned herself with him. She hadn't wanted to do it. She'd have done anything to prevent the impending massacre, but if she didn't do this, he'd kill them _and_ her brother. Once the Mafia claimed you, they didn't let you go. She couldn't get out of it. Better both her parents, than her parents plus the baby right?

The girl lifted the gun, her hand shaking as she pointed it at the couple, begging her to put the weapon down, and she shot twice.

"Well done, Evelyn." The Mafioso had said, patting her shoulder, "Now there is nothing anchoring you to your old life."

"I want to watch them disappear." She stated, her voice choking on her words. Tears dripped from her new crystal amber eyes, and the Hatter only raised a sculpted, blond eyebrow, but he neither protested nor ordered her away. He merely left her to her own devices. Once the Role-Holder and his ever-loyal lackeys walked out the front door, she fell to her knees in front of the two bodies.

"I'm sorry." She sobbed, "I'm so, so sorry." And she let the tears flow for about three minutes, until her parents vanished. She picked up the clocks, and handed them off to the afterimages, all the while trying to keep herself composed. Then she cleaned up the blood. She took the mop from the laundryroom downstairs, crossed back through the orange den, and wiped away every speck of red she could find off of the kitchen floor. Her disgusting chore finished, she put the cleaning supplies away, and viewed her work. If one ignored the absence of her parents, it would be effortless to trick oneself into thinking nothing had happened. Satisfied, or as satisfied as she could be, she trekked upstairs.

As Evelyn pushed open the door, she lit the lamp. There was a baby clinging to the edge of his crib, wondering where the loud noises had come from. As the girl looked into the eyes of her baby brother - barely two years old - she could feel nothing but regret. He gazed up at her innocently, questioningly, and lovingly, the way a toddler would look at his older sibling. He had no idea of the atrocity she had just committed, and he never would know. Not if she had anything to do about it. The Hatter wasn't aware of this child's existence. Now she had to figure out how to keep it that way. She gently scratched the little boy behind his hare ears - there _was_ a difference between hares and rabbits - until he sat back down in the crib and fell asleep. She blew out the oil lamp in the windowless nursery, and bundled the child up into the warmest, fluffiest blanket she could find.

/*\

Evelyn had killed every single Mafia worker that had been trailing her. All who knew of the baby thus far had died, but she was high strung all the same. She had criss-crossed through her neighborhood multiple times, and she had taken care of every spy she'd come across. Luckily, a thunderstorm had broken out that night period, so while everyone was inside, the gunshots were not a tad out of place.

Evelyn jogged back to her street, her brother clutched in her arms, and she left the boy wrapped up on a familiar doorstep. Shortly before leaving the place that used to be her home, she'd taken a piece of her mother's nice stationary and wrote a letter. She explained what had happened and why she'd done it, and placed it in the blanket with the child. She rang the doorbell, and jumped up onto the roof. Granted, she was hesitant to allow a family of dogs to care for him, but she knew these people. They wouldn't abandon him, and they would treat him kindly.

She was sure of it.

/*\

The little boy had grown up happily. He had five siblings, and two parents who adored him as if he were their own. For many years, things had gone this way, until the crime syndicate had visited town.

Elliot had heard about the Hatters and all the horrible things they did to the people who crossed them. Rather than horrified by these notions however, he'd been rather intrigued. The piece of territory he'd lived in was rather peaceful. There was no talk of torture or murder or fear, because it was a small-time town that existed far away from the Boss's mansion. In fact, many of the adults didn't even know what the Mad Hatter looked like, because their little province was not near any borders, nor was it near the mansion.

That day however, everything changed. The moment the Role-Holder had shown up, people had started talking. The twelve-year-old heard almost every word in the market, and wanted to see her himself.

/*\

The March Hare was an interesting woman by herself. Initially Elliot had been rather shocked by her attire, but soon got over it. She was dressed like a man, adorned in trousers and a trench coat, rather than a dress in the manner of the Role-Holder twin girls accompanying her.

"Tweedles," her accented voice ordered, "Find them." The little girls nodded, and ran off, pulling two terrifying-looking battle-axes out of seemingly nowhere. As they ran off into the woods, the woman turned and looked straight at him, and motioned for him to come down. He almost fell out of the tree, after jumping in surprise.

"How did you know I was here?" the boy asked, and to him it seemed a valid question. He was stealthier than any of his brothers and sisters. His sense of smell was better too, and he was far more aware of danger and people as well. He'd never once lost a game of hide-and-seek, and he'd always managed to evade his parents long enough to pin punishments on his siblings, since he "clearly is not here". In his experience, it was certainly odd that she had realized his presence, especially since he'd been so well-hidden in the highest boughs of the trees. The woman laughed, her glinting honey eyes half closing as she smiled.

"Hares have better senses than just about any other creature. It strikes me you would know that." One of his ears flattened in confusion,

"Why would I know that?" He asked, jumping down to the ground, his bare feet landing in the dirt perfectly. The woman almost appeared surprised, her right ear lowering in much the same manner as his. She looked as though she was questioning his intelligence.

"...Because you _are_ a hare?" His ear straightened,

"Oh! No, common assumption that I'm a rabbit. Not sure why. I'm a dog." He stated this as certainly as if he were speaking of the blueness of the sky or height of the trees around them.

The March Hare was trying to decide if the boy was joking.

She soon came to the conclusion that he was not.

She was quite displeased.

"_Hares and rabbits are completely different!_" She blew up, and soon Elliots' fascinated observation of the first Role-Holder he'd ever seen turned into one of the most irritating and superficial arguments he'd ever had in his life.

/*\

As Elliot walked back towards his house he decided that people were scared for no reason. The March Hare was the Mad Hatter's second-in-command. She was rumored to have slain a whole village single-handedly, and even killed the new Hatter's parents. They said that no man, woman, or assassin had ever landed a blow on her, evidenced by her blatant lack of battle scars. It was thought that she could even dauntlessly face the Dame of Hearts with little issue.

Through all of this, she had been relatively kind to him. Even when he'd upset her with his assumption that rabbits and hares were the same thing - and she had defintely been rather enraged by the thought - she hadn't killed him. She hadn't even hurt him. She yelled, yelled some more, and sent him home.

No, there definitely wasn't something right with this story. Something was off, way off, and as his puzzled self made his way out of the woods, down the street, and up to the porch of his two-story house, he caught a scent, one he was familiar with, when his siblings would get the odd injury outdoors or in the kitchen. He had never smelled it so strongly before, and as he tentatively moved his dirty feet over the wooden planks of the porch, he realized that the door had been left slightly ajar.

When Elliot walked into the room, he was presented with seven bodies. His mother, father, and five siblings. Unknowing how to react, he fell to his knees.

The bodies had not disappeared yet, meaning this atrocity had been committed but a few moments ago. Had he gotten there a little sooner, he might have joined them.

Elliot simply stared into space as the bodies of his family, the youngest but five years old, vanished into thin air, and then he watched as the black shadows of the afterimages appeared. This broke him out of his stupor.

"NO!" He cried, "You can't take them away!" He rushed one of the shadows, surprising it, and managed to yank away the clock that had belonged to his sister. Terra's "heart" rested in his hands, the glass cracked, no longer ticking. He clutched it to his chest, and stared at the ethereal being defiantly as it waved about its' arms in a pleading gesture.

If Elliot gave the afterimage the clock, Terra would be replaced. Elliot had never viewed the replacement of people as a good thing. If he handed over the clock, Terra would be erased. The clock, once belonging to the seven-year-old girl he'd thrown bullies in the river for, who he endured countless tea-parties and bonnets for, who's annoying pokes of and jabs of "Ellie" he tolerated, who meekly asked to sleep with him when she had nightmares, who thought herself stronger and mightier than her physique allowed... Her clock would be given to someone else. This someone else would completely erase her, and it would be as if she never existed, and he couldn't live with that. His little sister deserved better than that, _his whole family deserved better than that._

He kicked and clawed and even bit a few of the afterimages, but it was all for naught. The clocks were towed away, and he was left alone. He looked around the decimated house and - unknowing of what else to do - he went to his room, completely and totally shell-shocked.

Once Elliot pushed open the door of a room that he'd shared with the three other boys, he saw writing on the wall.

_They didn't pay their dues._

_-Tweedles and the March Hare_

His family hadn't been able to afford their taxes that year, and even though they'd never missed a payment to the Mafia before, they'd been brutally slain in their home, and at that woman's orders.

/*\

Three years later and Elliot was homeless, starving, and mercilessly tracking the woman who ordered his entire family dead. It hadn't been hard to find her, she lived in the mansion with the Hatter and the twin Role-Holders. Locating her was not the problem, no:

It was catching her at a vulnerable moment, and after three years...

That moment had finally come.

She had gotten blind drunk with the Dame of Hearts at the Queen's ball this year. Near the end of the event, the Dame had slipped the rabbit-woman glass after glass of wine, but not before dropping something into it, a pill it looked like, with the ever-present twins - when had they turned into boys? - whispering to each other and laughing. It was common knowledge that the Dame and the rabbit were friends under good circumstances, but it wasn't unheard of for them to attempt foul play every so often. It would appear that the Dame was making one such attempt now. Not to kill the Hare, no, that would be against the Rules until the time of day changed.

She was trying to gain an advantage. One that Elliot intended to reap.

/*\

The "new" Hatter was astonished at the condition his second-in-command was.

"Are you...drunk?" He asked, distaste clearly projected. The woman only giggled, and the Hatter - a boy would couldn't have been older than thirteen - rolled his eyes, and ordered her to go home. She mumbled something about missing the party, but he stood firm. If looks could kill, she'd be little more than a broken clock at that point.

"Don't worry Hatter," The Dame had come up next to her, and wrapped the Hare's right arm over her shoulders, supporting her weight. "I'll get her home safe and sound." The boy merely nodded, and returned to conversing with the Cheshire Cat.

/*\

As the Dame led the hateful woman through the maze of people, Elliot followed as discreetly as possible. The Dame in her stark-white dress, and the Hare in her sparkly black sheath. He couldn't lose them, not now, not when he had his opportunity...

He'd managed to keep sight of them up til they exited the castle, but it was fine. Elliot had an excellent sense of smell. Since there weren't hundreds upon hundreds of other people to muck up the scent, he was home free. He could find the hare, and then he could kill her.

/*\

He made his move when the night changed to day. It was no longer illegal to kill, and the hare was still getting sick off all the alcohol. What he didn't expect was that the Dame would get in his way.

He'd rushed the rabbit, but ran into the Dame. Apparently, she'd had the same idea. He distracted the woman for but a moment, her blond curls bouncing, her sword flailing, and her white skirt dancing away as he almost hit her in the shoulder. She deflected the bullet, but glared up at him in irritation.

"Hey!" The still drunk rabbit-lady called, taking a pistol out of her purse. "No one can kill her but _me_." She'd whined, as she shot round after round at Elliot, once the gun ran out of bullets, she snarled in annoyance, he was going to shoot when he saw her gazing at him, puzzled. She seemed to..._recognize_ him.

"Wait a second," She said, stopping him for a second, "You're that boy, that boy from the woods..." Elliot was shocked. He didn't expect her to know him. The Role-Holders couldn't tell faceless apart, not a single one, and especially not after three years. It was something they simply didn't care about, and Elliot had no idea how to respond.

"...They missed one year..." He whispered, "They always paid on time, and they missed one year. They'd even gotten permission to pay it the next month...why?" She sighed,

"He made me do it." Tears started streaming down her face, "It was his last order, to separate me from anything connecting to my life as a faceless-!" And just as she got hysterical, a gunshot sounded, and blood spurted out of the rabbit-womans chest, just a little above her clock. Her pupils grew small, and her ears flattened,

"I-I-" she choked out, and then fell over, dead, revealing the figure of the Dame pointing her hunting rifle with dangerous precision.

"So." She said, lowering the weapon, "She killed your family, huh? Oldest revenge story in the book." The rifle morphed back into a sword, and she slipped it back onto her belt, lightly hidden by the ruffles in her skirt.

"My youngest sibling was only five." He answered, his voice more than a little dead. He clutched the gun in his hand. Now that his mission was seemingly over, what was he supposed to do with the rest of his life. Upon asking the Dame, she shrugged,

"You get over it," She stated, without even looking at him. Her Heart Country accent made her voice sound warmer than intended, "You find a place to live, get a job, and pray you never become one of us." Elliot laughed humorlessly,

"Trust me, I'd never want to become one of _you_." The word left a poisonous taste in his mouth, as he watched an afterimage scoop the clock out of a puddle of blood. The Dame laughed as well,

"You're a lucky kid, you know-" She stopped, once her gaze finally looped back to him, "Oh." She said, her blue eyes widening. Then she laughed,

"Now _that's_ ironic." and she walked away, giggling up until she was out of sight.

"...What the hell was _that_?" He asked of no one particular, but he disregarded the incident soon enough. Everyone thought the Dame was crazy, and rightfully so. She always said things that made no sense, behaved friendly to kill you two seconds later. There was no rhyme or reason to her actions, and so he leisurely took his time walking the path home, not really bothered about her words.

Upon returning to Hatter territory, however, arriving at the border, he was confronted with the sight of the two boys hanging upside down from a tree, and...the Hatter himself. He was leaning on a shortened cane, and had to periodically push his hat up so it didn't fall over his face. He might have looked a little ridiculous if it wasn't for the fact that his piercing jade eyes made you want to run and hide and pray he did not find you.

"I didn't think she'd be replaced by someone so...commonplace." The boy remarked. Elliot was going to say something scathing in return. He could never back down from one such challenge, confusing though it might be, however, something caught his eye.

One of the boys was holding a mirror, and in the reflective surface, Elliot saw...himself.

He had eyes.

_This makes no sense,_ he thought, as his title announced itself in his mind, _I'M A DOG!_

**/*\**

**First of the one-shots! How do you guys like it? I kind of wanted an explanation as to why Elliot thinks he's a dog. Also: The role of March Hare seems to be somewhat specific. His last name is March, so I had the idea that the Role is passed down through the family, rather than assigned to random people. But yes, dark irony everywhere. I do love dark irony. Please review!**

**-Static**


	2. Adrenaline

**Hey! Been awhile since I wrote for this story, but oh well! :3 I promised a one-shot series, so I SHALL DELIVER A ONE-SHOT SERIES! One more pre-role Role-Holder. Say that five times fast. :P **

**-Static**

**/*\**

The first time the little boy had stepped foot into the Amusement Park, he'd been struck with a feeling of complete and utter awe. He'd heard of this place, but having been a resident of Clocktower Plaza, he didn't get to go very many places all that often. The faceless child looked around in wonder, and begged his parents to try each and every ride. They complied with his demands up until he decided he wanted to try something a little more...adrenaline-inducing.

The child had enjoyed the teacup rides and the Merry-Go-Round well enough, however he couldn't help but feel a bit bored. Where was the fear, the excitement? He'd heard the rides at the Amusement Park were terrifying and addicting all at the same time, so where were these legendary attractions he'd heard about? That was when his gaze fell to the tall twisty-turny shape of the largest roller-coaster the park had to offer.

That was when the boy decided on his next destination.

/*\

Much to the child's chagrin, his parents had said no roller-coasters. At the immediate moment, he was much too young and far too small for such dangerous rides. At least that's what his parents said. Not believing their words, he asked a park worker.

"Hello, ma'am?" The child looked up at the brightly dressed woman, wearing the most innocent expression he could muster.

"Yes?" She asked, smiling.

"Can I go on that roller-coaster?" And as he pointed up at the ride, she gasped, a little horrified.

"My goodness, no!" She exclaimed, "You're too small, you'd fall right out! The park owner would not be pleased to have to explain to a set of parents why their child had to get replaced..." And, having lost interest the second he did not get the answer he wanted, the boy walked away as the worker continued ranting.

For a moment the boy was discouraged, but he soon grinned, his tail flicking back and forth as he got a brilliant idea. Everything was so much more fun when it was against the rules anyway.

/*\

As the boy effortlessly snuck away while his parents were distracted - honestly, was a little dropped ice cream _really_ that important? - he was careful not to get stepped on. Being eleven years old, he was a bit shorter than his peers, however he was still quite agile and much stronger.

He zig-zagged through the forest of legs, and finally arrived at the roller-coaster. Now for the hard part. There was a worker supervising the line, making sure that only kids of a certain height could get on the ride. That was when the boy heard yelling. His parents were calling for him.

Swearing under his breath, the boy reiterated his plan. He hadn't expected them to notice his disappearance so quickly. He needed a disguise, fast, and surveying the area he spotted the gift shop. It was showcasing a long beige trench coat in the window, and an idea snaked it's way into his mind.

Now all he needed was an accomplice.

/*\

Taking shelter in the gift shop, the boy looked around for potential assistants in his master plan to get on the roller-coaster. There were several kids, and he took a good look at each and every one of them.

There was a set of twins, two girls with long blond hair. He considered it before deciding they were too small. They'd fall right out of the ride once it turned upside down, and he would be in enough trouble once it was all over. So, no.

Next there was a teenager. A boy, dressed in super nice clothes. He looked like one of those smarmy rich kids one might see parading themselves in front of their mansion, teasing the girls. He'd never liked those kids. His older sister had run off with one of them, and she'd returned home a year later, weeping and ashamed, saying that he'd found someone else. No, definitely not that one.

Afterwards there another boy, who looked to be just a little older than him. He was dressed like a normal kid and looked like he'd be interested in his offer. The boy was about to attempt his alliance when the other turned. Never mind. That was the guy who'd called him a runt at school and strung him up the flagpole.

Disgruntled, the boy continued looking around and spotted a girl with long, flowing lavender hair. She was wearing a dress that looked a bit too nice for the Amusement Park - definitely longer than it needed to be - but she looked like she had a good attitude. She was darting around the shop, taking in everything. It appeared that she shared his sense of awe for the place, but once she started cooing over the stuffed animals, he immediately rejected the idea. That was when he caught notice of what appeared to be the girl's brother.

The last boy looked to be around the same age, and he was following the purple-haired girl at a slow pace. His arms were crossed, and though his longish black hair covered his face, the boy could sense the boredom and irritation radiating off the other kid.

"Will this take much longer?" He mumbled to himself.

"We will take as long as it needs to find the perfect one!" The girl growled, having heard his comment, and then proceeded to continue fawning over the little fake animals. Her brother sighed a bit loudly in aggravation and then took notice of a few fake snakes. A little confused, the first boy watched as the second grabbed one of the wooden contraptions, and carefully placed it around his sibling's ankle. She didn't notice until she tried to walk away.

The first boy was trying to contain his laughter as the girl stifled her scream and then threw the harmless toy at her brother, storming off and saying that he could find his way back himself. The boy looked unconcerned, and moved towards the door. That was when the first kid made his move.

"That was pretty funny back there, what you did to...your sister?" The boy guessed. The other looked a bit surprised, and then gave a dry smile.

"Usually when I do that, all I hear about is how mean I am." He chuckled, "It's good to know that _some_one appreciates my sense of humor." his immediate companion snickered,

"Well you looked pretty bored, so I thought you'd like an in on a bit of fun." The dark-haired boy raised an eyebrow,

"You'll have to be pretty convincing. It'll be pretty inconvenient when my sister rats me out again. So shoot, you've got thirty seconds." And he crossed his arms, staring at the stranger challengingly. The first boy grinned.

/*\

"Hmm..." The dark-haired boy mused, tilting his head. "You are pretty persuasive. I'm up for a bit of extra trouble. What's your name?" The other boy grinned, and held out his hand,

"Boris, you?" And the other boy shook his hand,

"Blood." The cat tilted his head, one ear flattening, trying to decide if that was a joke.

"Seriously? Your name is Blood?" The other boy bristled,

"Do you want my help or not?" and the cat held his hands up in surrender.

"Sorry, sorry, first off, we need to get that jacket." He pointed out the mannequin in the window. Blood looked a little confused.

"Why?"

"Well, the problem at the moment is that neither of us are tall enough to get on that ride. It's long enough that if one of us stands on the others shoulders, no one will be the wiser, and we'll get in!" The cat-boy was, for all intents and purposes, feeling quite proud of himself for his deviousness, but his companion snorted in derision.

"That is the stupidest plan I have ever heard." The cat's ears flattened, and he almost hissed,

"Do you have a better idea?" And the boy smiled far too smugly for the cat's liking.

"As a matter of fact, I do."

/*\

When Blood had recited his idea to Boris, the cat thought it was far stupider than his original plan.

"What do you mean, 'stilts'?!" He'd growled, still hiding from his frantic parents in one of the aisles of the gift shop while they asked worker after worker concerning his whereabouts. "Stilts don't look like real legs, you dolt! The park employees will know instantly that we're not tall enough!" Instead of getting annoyed, the other boy simply smiled,

"With a little effort, they do." And Blood motioned for Boris to follow his line of sight.

On the other side of the wall were stilt sets, extra clothes for the weaker stomached park customers, and shoes.

"Won't they notice that our legs are too long?" Boris asked, looking for any flaw in his new friends plot.

"Not if we steal both the jackets in the display window." Boris's ears flattened, "You get the coats and glue, and I'll handle the rest."

Though the cat didn't want to admit it, his friend's plan was far more sound than his, so he followed the other boys line of thinking, and went for the glue first.

/*\

At this point, Blood's parents were now looking for him too. With the two couples plus an enraged sister on their tails, the two retreated into an alleyway with their stolen supplies, and climbed a ladder onto a roof. Then, with the precision of a surgeon, Blood put together their spare legs.

He'd taken two pairs of stilts, and cut them in half with a pocket knife. He'd stated that this would make their appearance a little more believable. They wouldn't be nearly as disproportionate, and so there would be less chance of suspicion.

Next, he'd swiped the glue all over the backs of the shortened stilts, and slid them into the trouser legs. At that point, Boris had almost ruined the plan. They needed to wait for the glue to dry, and being a cat, Boris was not a patient child.

"I did not agree to this so you could blow it when you got bored!" Blood had exclaimed.

"But there's nothing to _do_." Boris had snarled back, his tail lashing, "I'm so bored I think I might go insane!" And as the boy was about to jump off the roof into the flood of people - he said something about crowd-surfing? - Blood had taken one of the sawed-off pieces of stilt, and smacked him in the back of the head.

Blood was very quickly regretting having agreed to this imbeciles offer of 'fun'.

/*\

When Boris woke, Blood informed him that their disguises were ready. A little too excited, the cat stumbled around on his stilts on the rooftop for a moment. Blood was a little worried that he'd fall and expose their hideaway before he'd gotten on the roller-coaster, but it was fine. Boris quickly got the hang of it - one of the advantages of being a cat - and was quick to descend the ladder and don his disguise.

They left the alleyway as soon as Blood had gotten used to walking the stilts.

/*\

Luckily, the stolen trench coats had hoods. There were faceless everywhere looking for the two of them, and they couldn't afford to be spotted, not yet. Not when they were so very _close_. Once the two children made it to the line, they could feel their clocks sink a little.

When had the line gotten this long?!

/*\

Finally, at long last, it was their turn on the roller-coaster. Blood, upon realizing that neither of them had a ride ticket, had pick-pocketed the man in front of him. Boris, not wanting to be outdone, did the same. However it was a bit easier for the cat, as two tickets had been sticking out of the woman's purse. Not that he'd let his new friend know that.

When they'd reached the front, they had both held their breaths. The woman had asked them to stand in front of the cardboard cut-out limiting the height, and to their relief, Blood had not docked the stilts too much. They could get in, and as they followed another worker to the seats in the ride, they couldn't help but feel exceedingly excited as well as a tad victorious. They did it. They'd created a good disguise, and managed to evade their families for a good two time changes. Now they would reap the reward of their work, and as the workers buckled up the seat belts on the ride, the two boys were certain that, at this point, nothing would stop them.

Boy were they wrong.

/*\

Their families did not find them, nor did any park workers recognize them as two of the missing kids. No, the roller-coaster took off with them on it, and it went two laps around the twisty-turny track before it happened.

"Thi-i-is iiiiiiiiz AWWWWESOOOOOME!" Boris yelled at his companion, the bumps and drops warping his speech. Blood nodded enthusiastically.

"I-I-I regre-e-et noth-thing!" He answered, and then it happened. The cars were once again approaching the twist where it would hang upside down, and at the drop, they would be right-side up once more. The issue was, that once the cars had completely turned...

_SNAP!_

The two boys were falling.

The seat belts had broken.

/*\

The two boys screamed as they fell. They knew they'd be reincarnated, but that did not console the fear welling up in their clocks. They were going to die with a person they'd met not five hours ago, and it was fairly likely that their families would never know what happened.

They'd just disappear, and the only people who valued them would have no idea. Then something crashed into them.

A tall man with long black hair had rammed into them, and threw them to the side. They would not land in front of the roller-coaster, however he'd lost his momentum. Just before he'd gotten run down by the string of cars, the two boys had caught sight of two wide blue eyes and a set of cat ears.

This was the Cheshire Cat.

He'd just saved them.

And now, his body fell down through the tracks. For a few moments it was silent. Boris looked at the man, completely shell-shocked. He was too pale for being someone who stood out in the sun all day. His lips were slightly parted, showing his sharp incisors. His tail was striped with gray and black, and he was dressed quite casually. His eyebrows were scrunched up, and he was hissing in pain.

"Is...Is he okay, do you think?" Boris questioned. Blood merely shrugged his shoulders, and was the first to step forward and investigate.

"Hey," He poked the mans shoulders, "Why'd you do that? We'd have been replaced y'know?" Though Blood looked confident, his Red Kingdom accent, which he'd kept carefully under control, was now marring his speech. He was getting nervous. What would their parents say once they found out their two trouble-making boys had just murdered the Cheshire Cat?

"Because," the man answered, his tail twitching as he grinned wryly, "If there's anything that Gowland hates more than me bleeding on park grounds," He took a deep breath, "It's explaining dead children." And then he faded into a clock, and the afterimages carted it away.

"Holy #$%," Boris breathed, "We just killed a Role-Holder." Blood nodded thoughtfully,

"Cool." Was all he said before sauntering away.

/*\

When Boris had woken up the next morning, nothing had seemed particularly unusual. He'd been grounded, of course, as had Blood. Upon being found, they'd been asked which of the two was the mastermind of the operation. They'd both immediately pointed at each other, and so had both been harshly disciplined. The cat, more than a little irked, had retreated to his room that night and despairingly thought of the wait he'd have to endure, and thought nothing more of the incident.

He took his morning bath, and gotten dressed in the black outfit his parents hated oh so much. Retaliation was key to his existence. He mussed his hair with his hands, making it as messy as possible and went downstairs, not bothering with the mirror, his tail twitching. That was when he noticed something a bit odd.

There were workers from the Amusement Park sitting at the dining room table, chatting away with his parents.

"Mom? Dad?" He questioned, "What's going on?" And as soon as his parents turned their attention to him, they both gasped, while the park workers smiled.

"Boris?!" His mother had choked out, and before he could respond,

"It appears we have a new Cheshire Cat!" The woman exclaimed, delighted. Boris's ears flattened.

What?

As soon as he gazed in the mirror, the image of the now-dead Cheshire Cat flickered through his mind, and a voice rang out in the boy's head.

_So Boris is your name, eh?_ It asked. That was...the cat. The one who'd died yesterday. As the boy studied his reflection more closely, he realized how much more detailed his face appeared. He didn't have to squint for half an hour to get a decent look at his eyes. His eyebrows weren't obnoxiously bushy, and his nose wasn't large either. Now that he'd asserted he wasn't actually an _ugly_ cat, he moved on to connecting the pieces.

The park workers at the table.

His face in the mirror.

The astonished looks from his parents.

The voice in his head.

"Well," he said, "It's not like this is the worst Role I could have gotten." He grinned.

All because he wanted some adrenaline.

/*\

"...And that's how we became friends!" Boris stated, watching Alice take a sip from her tea, never taking her eyes off of him.

"But you guys _killed_ the last Cheshire Cat!" She exclaimed. Blood leaned back in his chair and groaned. Was this woman incapable of finding the humor in the story?

"I _knew_ that would be the part you latched onto." He mumbled, while Boris simply laughed.

**/*\**

**So what did you guys think of that? I know Blood has been present in pretty much every story I've written, but I promise this is the last time. In fact, the only reason he made an appearance in this one is because I've noticed that Boris attends the tea parties far too often for him to **_**not**_** be friends with the Mad Hatter. Perhaps this is how that friendship was born? Anyways, as it says in the summaries, if you would like more to this one-shot series, REVIEW! :D**

**-Static**


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